"Thank you," said Diana, not perfectly aware of what she said. Mr. Rivett sat buried in meditation for fully five minutes; at the end of that period he turned his glasses on her. "I want to gossip with you," he said abruptly. [Illustration: "’I want to gossip with you,’ he said abruptly."] She began to laugh again. "How did you discover that I am such a dreadful gossip? Begin at once, please. I adore picking to pieces my absent acquaintances." "Yes—tearing ’em to tatters, the way you demolished Mr. Edgerton just now," he said grimly. "Well, I’ll begin the scandal bee. Where did you know Mr. Inwood?" "In Keno, Nevada," she said coolly, wondering what was impending. "Know him long?" "One winter." "In Keno?" "In Keno." "Like him?" "Immensely." "Oh! So you’re going to tear him to tatters, too?" "Just as I demolished Mr. Edgerton. They’re the two nicest men I ever knew. It’s odd, isn’t it, that I didn’t know they were such intimate friends before Mr. Inwood came here?" "Are they?" "I understand so." "And you didn’t know it?" "How should I? I never saw Mr. Inwood except that winter in Keno; and I don’t know my cousin intimately." "How well _do_ you know your cousin?" The girl sat thinking for a moment, then looked up frankly. "Perhaps you can judge," she said, and told him the history of her friendship with Edgerton from their meeting in his studio to their arrival at Adriutha. And Mr. Rivett listened without a shade of expression on his face, but his little dark eyes seemed to bore her through and through. "That," she said, "is the situation." She hesitated, then meeting his gaze candidly, but with a slight increase of color in her cheeks: "I told you this because I wanted to be fair to Mr. Edgerton—in case—in the event of you—your family—people here not considering us of much importance. Mr. Edgerton is not responsible for us.... I think he came from some boyish impulse—some chivalrous notion that my sister and I, being alone, might receive perhaps more consideration if a man of our family accompanied us." "I see." "I wanted you to see. I’m glad I’ve had an opportunity to make the matter plain that Mr. Edgerton is in no way responsible for any shortcomings on our part." "Nobody complains of you." "Oh, no; everybody is nice to us. But—we—do things—which—women of his family—perhaps would not do." "Smoke?" "Yes. Cocktails, too. Also we gamble, dreadfully." "Wouldn’t his people?" "I don’t know," said the girl. "I don’t know New York. One reads about these rather harmless vices being universal there. But Silvette and I are really provincial. Provincials usually go too far in either direction. It was only that I did not wish people to judge Mr. Edgerton from us." Mr. Rivett scraped the gravel with his cane for a moment, then: "So you like Inwood?" "Very much." "Wasn’t he mixed up in some mess or other?" "I never heard so," she said, surprised. "Oh! What was he doing in Keno?"